The essay section of the work is thoughtful and very much to the point, embracing in essay form the ideas of compression and purpose I think we look for in good flash. The essays (flash essays?) are arranged with care moving from discussion of basics of writing and structure, to considerations of the more abstract problems of writing, often leading seamlessly from one to the next. There are certainly, throughout these, many occasions where I found myself saying, "Hell yes, Steve Almond!" He has a real knack for taking a complex argument on plot construction, or point of view, and distilling it into a bluntly useful assessment that still escapes coming off as one of the "maxims" or "rules" that writers rightfully distrust. He puts out his own thesis fairly distinctly in his second essay "Bullshit Detector" where he says, "Writing is decision making. Nothing more and nothing less."

For the rest of these essays, Almond focuses on what types of decisions we should make as writers, and comes down firmly on the side of simple, straightforward, narrative writing. He is fairly clear that he comes from the basic idea that, "Readers come to fiction as wiling accomplices to your lies. That's the basic contract: we'll suspend our disbelief in exchange for a good story." The virtues of what makes a good story also seem direct, character driven, emotionally meaningful, cognizant of the difference between surprise and suspense, and with language that disappears into the narrative. This is not to say that Almond is always entirely consistent, but is easily more consistent than most of those that venture into the difficult project of writing advice. He does stand out to me for the sheer directness and utility of his advice. He has obviously asked himself his own question (or perhaps Brecht's), "What work does it do?"

With this in mind it is almost tempting to take Almond up on his implicit challenge, flip his book over, and analyze thirty flash fiction stories each in terms of the virtues he lays out in the essay section. It may be because I (deliberately) read the fiction first, but I do enjoy the extent to which this collection resists the need to do precisely that. I like that the fiction collection, and I think this is helped out by the wise and interesting choice to bind this head-to-toe, while obviously using various ideas of character, point-of-view, and setting as a touchstone, exists not as exemplars for the essays but as a project in its own right.

The stories are arranged into six sections of five poems each, moving from the backward gazing "i. an Imperfect Command of History" in an arc that nearly becomes circular with "vi. Major American Cities of Sadness," which makes a history of the present. One of the central themes is how the individual perseveres, or is sustained, against the context and flow of events. We interestingly begin with a voice from WWII of a woman given Hitler's teeth in a box who says, "It is always the women who handle the dead. We allow history to pass through us, like a quiet wave, and we hold fast to the present." By the end of the work, in the fantastically titled "Stop," there is a different kind of requliary an unnamed girl, working in a Roy Rogers by day, "[lays] a pink bear before the marker and you persisted, you persist."

This theme of persistence, combined with the direct and careful crafting of Almond's prose, gives the narratives here a curious patina of inevitability. There's a sense if rightness about these pieces, which allows them to at times encompass all kinds of dissonant and strange elements, and still appear as if the story could never come out any other way. When the reader, for instance, comes to the end of "Morgantown Waltz" where,

"Men did almost nothing here. They scratched at black veins. They took wives. They swam in bottles. The porches aren't porches. There are no porches. No hollow trunks of air. Only butterflies landing one by one on small yellow blossoms. Who wouldn't wish to die in such a place."

the sense of persistence is tinged with an inevitability and sureness I find very appealing.

This work overall works for me as a heartfelt argument in essay and story for a certain kind of narrative. In Almond's words, "My intent is always to reach some unbearable moment where time slows down and the sensual and psychological details compress and the language rises." By presenting this argument both ways, Almond has created an interesting project. It's one I don't think that would have succeeded if Almond didn't carefully employ the values he espouses, brevity, directness, and a willingness to meet the difficult head on. We are fortunate as readers that Almond is able to do this with such grace.

About the Author

Todd B. Stevens is currently an MFA student at Rosemont College. He has studied English at Cornell and Villanova. Todd worked for many years as a bookseller. His poetry has recently been published in Mad Poets Review and Off the Coast and is featured in the anthology Prompted: Poems, Essays from Greater Philadelphia Wordshop Studio, which will be published in late May, 2010.

For further reading, check out FlashFiction.Net's suggested readings of flash fiction and prose poetry collections, anthologies, and craft books, by clicking here.

About Flashfiction:

FlashFiction.Net has a singular mission: to prepare writers, readers, editors, and fans for the imminent rise to power of that machine of compression, that hugest of things in the tiniest of spaces: flash freakin fiction!

Coming Up: A good starting place is the index. It's the quickest way to find what you're looking for: prompts, interviews, examples, definitions, craft articles, essays, flash pieces, and the like.

Written by Matter Press's founder and managing editor Randall Brown, A Pocket Guide to Flash Fiction provides NOT the way to write flash fiction, but SOME ways to make your writing flash!